Si Vales Valeo
by Spoons1899
Summary: If you are well, I am well.


**Si Vales Valeo**

_Latin._

_If you are well, I am well._

When Sam is six he gets pneumonia and Dean spends all day rubbing his back and reading him books until Dean's voice is even harsher than Sam's. Their Dad tries to convince him to sleep in his own bed, saying he doesn't want Dean to catch it too, can't have two sick kids on his hands, but Dean is determined. Sammy might need him some time during the night, and he doesn't plan on sleeping anyway, not until he knows his brother is better. For three more days he puts cool cloths on Sam's skin and watches every animated musical he can get his hands on. Dean hates these movies— not enough explosions or car chases, and one has a singing _bunny _for Christ's sake— but Sammy loves them so Dean rewinds the tapes and lets them play over and over again.

The day after Sam turns fourteen he gets his leg broken in three places by a Mogwai. They get him checked out of the hospital as soon as possible after the surgery, and Dean helps him limp around the apartment as he gets used to his cast and crutches. When Sam throws himself down in exhausted frustration, tears threatening in the corner's of his eyes, Dean brings him things without being asked. A glass of water, his homework, the map their dad has been tracing lines on for the better part of two days. He bails on his date with Hot Cheryl— double Ds, tongue piercing, and apparently guaranteed to swallow— to order pizza and shout obscenities at a bad horror movie with Sam.

When Sam is eighteen he gets shot in the shoulder, and it's close enough to his heart that Dean does nothing for a day but bite his nails and stare. Their dad stitches it up and their dad says he'll be fine, but it's not until Sam opens his eyes and bitches about being hungry that Dean starts fully breathing again. He goes out and buys fresh fruit and salad and the biggest fucking bag of Snickers he can find, and they eat only Sammy's favorite foods for the rest of the week.

When Sam dies for the first time at twenty-three, Dean sells his soul to get him back.

It's around Dean's birthday the next time Sam breaks something. It's just his finger, his little finger, swollen purple and jutting at a wrong angle, but Dean doesn't notice because they're on a hunt and Sam doesn't tell him. It's not until the demon is wasted— it talked about Hell, everything talks about Hell now except the two of them— that Dean picks up on Sam's pinched face and slightly hunched stance. Dean splints the finger even though Sam says he can do it himself, and on the way back to the motel he stops and buys them both smoothies. Dean doesn't really like smoothies, but Sam does and Sam likes finishing Dean's when he inevitably gives up halfway through.

A month later Sam gets cursed by a witch and goes blind for a day and a half. Dean makes sure he steers him into a few walls and curbs, but he gets Sam situated on his bed without a single bruise. He lets Sam clean the guns for something to do, and doesn't tell him he's impressed when Sam does so near perfectly. He doesn't tell him he's not, either.

When Sam looses himself in darkness and blood-soaked lies, Dean plunges after him and does his best to pull him out. It doesn't matter that Dean's lost too. He wants Sammy to be found.

They die a lot in the coming year. Dean checks Sam's pulse every time, waits until Sam's asleep then glides fingers through his too-long hair. He never stops being grateful Sam's alive, even when he wishes they both could stay dead.

When Sam cuts himself on broken glass two weeks before the end Dean treats it like a stab wound. He patches Sam up and tries to convince him to take painkillers, because Dean thinks it would be so much easier if they could both just feel nothing. It isn't until Sam shakes his head and touches Dean's shoulder and he sees the tiny spot of blood working it's way through Sam's bandage that Dean realizes he's crying. He gets Sammy drunk on whiskey and nostalgia, cataloguing every smile. Counting them as victories.

When Sam throws himself and Lucifer and Michael into the pit at the age of twenty-six, Dean doesn't do anything at all. He kneels on hard-packed dirt and feels the life drain out his body. Castiel heals his injuries, but he can't heal this. Bobby shares his knowledge, but he'll never share this. Lisa accepts him into her world, but there's no accepting this.

Sam is trapped. Sam is lost. Sam is gone.

So is Dean.


End file.
